New research confirms Australians among most optimistic

MARK BANNERMAN: New research from the USA confirms that Australians really do have a 'happy-go-lucky' attitude.

The research looked at the optimism of people in 142 countries and found that the most hopeful people lived in Ireland, followed by Brazil, Denmark, New Zealand and the United States.

Australians are among the most optimistic people in the world, coming in the top 20 per cent.

The least optimistic people are living in Zimbabwe, Egypt, Haiti, and Lebanon.

Nick Haslam is a professor of psychology at Melbourne University and he's been telling our reporter Felicity Ogilvie that optimism is linked to quality of life.

NICK HASLAM: People are more optimistic in countries that are doing quite well and despite all the naysayers, Australia's economy and general quality of life is quite high. So it's not at all surprising really.

FELICITY OGILVIE: What is it from a psychological point of view that makes people optimistic?

NICK HASLAM: Well, there's all sorts of sources for it, but the way the authors of this study define it, optimism just is having positive expectations about the future, and some people are a bit more hopeful than others.

That's probably some mixture of their biology and their life experiences. This study shows that it's also depending on their age and their education and their wealth, and even their gender - women tend to be more optimistic than men.

FELICITY OGILVIE: Is it that if you have more money and more education you're going to be more optimistic about your future?

NICK HASLAM: Well certainly not necessarily, because we all know lots of well-off people who aren't happy with their life and with their future, but on average, that is true.

These authors find in a study of 142 countries that that's an effect you'll find everywhere. People who have more education, better income, and more years still to live tend to be more optimistic about their futures.

FELICITY OGILVIE: So does that mean that the old saying that money can't buy you happiness might be wrong?

NICK HASLAM: Well, it probably can't buy it, but it certainly helps. This is not saying that that's wrong, it's just saying that people who have more of it will on average be more cheerful and more hopeful about their futures.

FELICITY OGILVIE: So circumstances help to make people more optimistic and hopeful - is there anything going on in the brain that makes some people more optimistic than others, regardless of their circumstances?

NICK HASLAM: Sure. People find that levels of life satisfaction and positive emotion and negative emotion all have some sort of heritable basis. So a reasonable fraction of your level of optimism and happiness is going to be to some extent genetically influenced, and that will be manifested in people's brains - of course, that's where your emotional reactions are based and there is a well-known psycho-biology of things like positive emotion.

So certainly more optimistic people are going to have somewhat distinct brains, but they're also going to have somewhat distinct life circumstances and social networks and experiences and incomes and all kinds of other social things that matter at least as much.

FELICITY OGILVIE: Is there anything that people can do to become more optimistic?

NICK HASLAM: Sure, look, I think these things are things that you can cultivate and simply thinking about the blessings of your life and thinking about how things can improve and how any adversities you're currently suffering can be quite temporary - simply thinking about and savouring possible future experiences and thinking about alternatives, thinking about the great openness of the future, is in itself something that can make you more optimistic.